Planning Appeal Costs and Awards of Costs (2010–2025)
Request received 11 December 2025
Please provide a breakdown of costs incurred by the Council in relation to Planning Appeals for each financial year from 2010/11 to the current date in 2025.
Specifically, I request the data be provided in a table format containing the following two categories:
1. The total amount spent by the Council on legal fees, external consultants, and administrative costs for defending planning appeals.
2. The total number of planning appeals defended by the Council (if an appeal crosses a financial year please include it in the same year as the costs were paid).
3. The total amount paid out to appellants (third parties) following a decision by the Planning Inspectorate that the Council acted "unreasonably" (Awards of Costs).
4. The total number of instances where costs were paid out to appellants (third parties) following a decision by the Planning Inspectorate that the Council acted "unreasonably" (Awards of Costs).
Responded 7 January 2026
Due to a change in systems we can only provide data from 1st April 2013 to 11th December 2025.
Financial year
Own legal/appeal costs (£)
Number of planning appeals defended
Costs paid due to "Unreasonable" decision (£)
Number of instances were costs were paid for “Unreasonable” decision
2013/2014
£2,750.00
13
£6,546.55
1
2014/2015
£4,070.00
16
£0.00
0
2015/2016
£10,370.00
15
£1,350.00
1
2016/2017
£848.00
11
£32,687.15
2
2017/2018
£2,000.00
37
£0.00
0
2018/2019
£2,610.30
28
£18,141.49
2
2019/2020
£763.00
48
£4,612.20
2
2020/2021
£6,850.00
46
£26,010.00
1
2021/2022
£38,508.83
28
£755.00
1
2022/2023
£44,770.00
34
£0.00
0
2023/2024
£29,103.00
39
£3,412.50
1
2024/2025
£18,225.00
26
£0.00
0
2025/2026
£3,402.50
26
£0.00
0